New San Jose Gun Law

Examining the pros and cons of the new gun legislation

SONIA PATIL

writer

With the rise of gun violence in local areas, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has implemented some of the nation’s strongest gun-ownership requirements. Most notably, in January 2022, Liccardo put a liability insurance and fee requirement in place, stirring up a variety of responses–both opposed and in favor of the law. According to NBC Bay Area, “Be - tween 50,000 and 55,000 San Jose households own at least one gun.” The 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival mass shooting was what first prompted Liccardo to develop stricter gun laws. The goal was to reduce gun violence and shift the financial burden of emergency response and victim services caused by firearms away from the general taxpayer and onto gun owners. As of 2021, San Jose residents pay an estimated $442 million in gun-related costs per year. Liccardo’s plans slowed with the COVID-19 pandemic, but the idea came back into full force after the mass shooting at the VTA light rail in May 2021. On January 25, 2022, Silicon

Valley City Council approved the insurance policy with a 10-1 vote, and the fee policy voted 8-3. The ordinance requires gun owners to carry liability insurance that covers damage caused by their weapons, and the fee requirement will be charged per household, not per gun.

The ordinance has gained much support locally, said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, “Following unthinkable tragedies from gun violence, San José has taken action that will save lives.”

However, despite local support, the law’s fee requirements have also faced much opposition. Said Sam Paredes in an interview with NPR, “Any way you put the lipstick on this pig, it is still a pig. It’s still wrong-headed. It is unconstitutional…the fee requirement will only create financial and bureaucratic burdens for legal gun owners.”

Responding to such concerns in a separate interview, said Liccardo, “While the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, it does not require taxpayers to subsidize gun ownership. We won’t magically end gun violence, but we will stop paying for it. We can also better care for its victims, and reduce gun-related injuries and death through sensible interventions.” The proceeds from the fee requirement will fund a non-profit organization, yet to be established, that will focus on gun crime prevention and provide aid to victims of gun violence.

The insurance requirement of the law has been met with dispute as well,

with some questioning the overall effectiveness of the plan. Gun owners are required to carry liability insurance covering accidental firearm-related death, injury, or property damage. According to the law, it covers deaths and damages of “any negligent or accidental use of the firearm” according to the law. Yet this implementation is not new. A number of people have had this coverage with their homeowner or umbrella liability policies already in the past. Thus, questions arise on the viability of the new insurance requirement.

While some question the effectiveness of the insurance policy, lower premiums for those with gun safes, trigger locks and completed gun safety classes are expected to incentivize safer behavior. Many have compared this similar to auto insurer’s risk-adjusted premiums rewarding good driving and incentivizing the use of car safety features. A similar approach can “limit gun accident risk, since 4.6 million children live in a household where a gun is kept unlocked and loaded, and 72 percent of gun injuries occur at home,” according to the City of San Jose.

Additionally, the insurance requirement ensures care for victims of “unintentional shootings—which are generally insurable—[and] comprise more than a third of all gun-related injuries. An insurance mandate will ensure proper medical care and rehabilitation for many of the 26,000 injured victims of unintentional shootings annually.”

Despite this, many gun rights activists feel the ordinance does not do the job of addressing the root cause of gun violence, and urge lawmakers to focus on enforcing existing laws, to fund more mental health services and police officer training instead. Overall,

it is still too early to determine the true effectiveness of San Jose’s stricter gun requirements. While the ordinance has faced both approval “ WE CAN BETTER CARE FOR [GUN VIOLENCE] VICTIMS, AND REDUCE and resistance, general public attitudes may shift in the future. The outcome of the law

GUN-RELATED INJURIES from years to follow, if with successful results,

AND DEATH THROUGH SEN- could prompt other cit-

SIBLE INTERVENTIONS. ” ies to implement simiSAM LICCARDO lar ordinances or even have a statewide adoption. Liccardo still emphasizes the importance of the steps taken by this law against gun violence. Said Mayor Liccardo, “[the ordinance] won’t stop mass shootings and keep $1.4 B bad people from committing vio- in costs absorbed by lent crime, but most CA taxpayers for gungun deaths nationally are from shot-related responses in 2018 suicide, accidental *According to the Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation shootings or other causes and even many homicides stem from 55.3% domestic violence” increase in gun own-

ership in San Jose over the past 5 years

*According to the Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation NEWS | 7